More about Immigrants and the World of the Lower East Side

Lower East Side, ca. 1908. Courtesy: Library of Congress

Between 1880 and 1930 nearly 25 million people immigrated to the United States. The vast majority came from Europe, including the nations Ireland, Italy, Greece, Poland, Russia, and the Ukraine. Around 2 million of those immigrants were Jews, most of them fleeing the pogroms of Eastern Europe. In New York, the Lower East Side became a magnet for new arrivals. By 1900 the neighborhood was predominantly Jewish. It was also home to other groups, especially Italians. House was cheap. People crowded into tenements where families lived in two or three room apartments, often without heat, hot water, or indoor toilets. Nearly everyone worked. Thousands of women and girls were employed in the garment industry. Factories were mostly small operations, many of them owned by immigrants or first generation Americans. Workers had few rights. For the most part, they were not paid by the hour but by the number of pieces they could finish. There were no sick days or vacation time. "If you don't come in on Sunday, don't come in on Monday," was an oft-repeated phrase. Some bosses even posted the words on the factory wall. Those who did not work in factories could work at home, sewing or making small objects by hand. Like factory workers, these home workers were paid by the piece. The work was doled out by a boss or "jobber" and collected at the end of the day. The streets in the Lower East Side were always filled with workers carrying boxes and stacks of items to be finished at home. Italian women and children dominated the artificial flower trade. Whole families spend the entire day making flowers from wire, paper, wax and glue. These flowers were later used to decorated the hats and gowns of wealthy and middle class women. The children that made them suffered burns from hot wax, cuts from wire, and skin rashes from toxic dyes on the paper. Children also worked on the streets. Thousands of boys, and some girls too, sold newspapers and shined shoes. Others peddled food, flowers, soda pop, chewing gun and almost anything else they could sell for a penny or two. School was a luxury for most families. Even when children did attend they were often too tired from working at night to concentrate on their studies. Although laws stipulated that children needed to be at least 14 in order to work, factory inspectors and city officials did not make much effort to enforce the rules. Families could easily obtain a work permit for an underage child using a false birth certificate. People faced with poverty had little choice. The struggle to end child labor was part of the on-going campaign for workers' rights, but it did not always impact everyday life. Despite these hardships, however, the Lower East Side maintained a vibrant culture. The population was predominantly young, mostly under the age of 30. People hungered for a bit of entertainment, pleasure, and above all for connection with one another. The neighborhood had its share cafes, dancehalls, and theaters where young men and women could mingle after work. "Nicklelodeons" even gave them a taste of the brand new medium, "motion pictures." Lectures and concerts drew enthusiastic crowds. A rare day off might be celebrated by a trip to Coney Island or a railway excursion to the countryside. At home, the city streets were places to see and be seen. A new hat, jacket, or pair of boots, was a possession to be treasured. They might struggle to get by, but like young people everywhere, the workers of the Lower East Side cultivated ambition and pride. Aspiring artists and writers often formed leagues and clubs to encourage one another. Settlement houses, run by progressive social workers, provided lessons in English and recreational programs of all kinds. Newspapers, too, flourished. One of the most famous was The Jewish Daily Forward. Founded in 1897, the Forward supported social reform, labor unions, and workers' rights. It was also known for the Bintel Brief, the letters it published from its readers touching upon every subject from politics to romance. Many of the writers wre young women, and their letters offer a moving glimpse of the emotional life of the Lower East Side. During the early years of the 20th century, labor unions began to gain traction among garment workers. Among the largest of these organizations was the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), a union for all those involved in the manufacture of women's clothing. The union insisted that workers should be paid by the hour, not by the piece, and that the work week should be limited to no more than 52 hours. These demands were hardly extreme, but the union still faced an uphill battle. Union organizers often found themselves blacklisted at factories and unable to get jobs. Strikes and walkouts were common but usually short-lived. People could not afford to remain out of work for extended periods of time. Each factory set its own rules. Manufacturers who made agreements with the unions could break them easily. The unions believed that only a general strike could force employers to recognize workers' rights. A general strike meant that workers at every garment factory in the city would go on strike at once. Such a tactic had never been tried before. It was daring and even dangerous. Large scale strikes among railway workers and coal miners had been put down by armed force. In New York, workers had been arrested and sentenced to jail for leading protests. In additional, the ILGWU faced another problem. While the rank and file of its members were women and girls, the leaders were almost all men. Many of these men doubted that women had the stamina for a strike that might endure for months. They worried that the women would be 'flighty' and undisciplined, ready to leave the picket lines at a moments notice to tend to housework and family problems. In 1909 women proved them wrong. On the evening of November 22, 1909, the union held a mass meeting at New York's Cooper Union to discuss the merits of a general strike. The male leaders urged caution, pointing out that winter was a hard time to be out of work and urging the workers to wait until spring. Speeches went on for hours. The strike seemed as if it would be put off indefinitely when twenty-three year old Clara Lemlich mounted the stage. She was tired of talk, she told the assembly. It was time for action, not words. "I make a motion that we go out on a general strike," she declared. Lemlich was an experienced union organizer and orator. Her powerful speech electrified the audience. They seconded her motion with wild cheers. Within two days, over 20,000 garment workers had walked out of the factories. Most of them were young women in their teens and twenties. The strike became known as the uprising of the 20,000 and remains one of the largest labor actions by women in American history. The strike lasted well into the winter. The women faced freezing cold, hunger, and nearly continual harassment from the police and local thugs hired by employers to rough them up. Yet they stayed on their picket lines bringing the entire garment industry in New York to a halt. By the spring of 1910, most of the employers had settled with the union and accepted many of its demands. Unfortunately, fire safety was not among them. A year later, on March 25, 1911, over 140 workers would die in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. The tragedy cast a long shadow over the achievements of the strike. Nevertheless, the Uprising of the 20,000 demonstrated that women could make their voices heard. As one of the union's popular songs put it: “In the winter of nineteen-o-nine, “When we froze and bled on the picket line,We showed the world that women could fight, And we rose and won with women’s might.”

For a look at life on the Lower East Side click on the slides below. You can discover more resources here.